


Into the Aftermath

by fluffywambler



Series: Sasha Hawke [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Battle of Kirkwall, F/F, Ficlet, Moral Ambiguity, Post-Game, Regret, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25856452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffywambler/pseuds/fluffywambler
Summary: After the Battle of Kirkwall, Sasha Hawke and Merrill have nothing left but each other.
Relationships: Female Hawke/Merrill
Series: Sasha Hawke [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1876231
Kudos: 5





	Into the Aftermath

The sky glows red, where the Chantry used to be. Tears in the Veil.

Gone because of Sasha. She'd found the drakestone, she'd pointed Anders to the sela petrae.

She's probably the world's leading expert in fucking things up.

She'd been so shocked she'd stumbled through everything afterward fucking up more things. The Maker, or maybe some god of Merrill's people with a sense of humor more warped than her own— Fen'Harel perhaps?—had somehow kept her, and her similarly fucked-up friends, alive.

She'd killed Orsino, or the thing that used to be him, somehow. She hadn't killed Meredith directly, but she'd found that red chunk of something horrible that Meredith had called upon and turned herself to stone.

She hadn't managed to kill Anders. One hand had curled on the hilt of her dagger. Then she'd seen his hands cradling Merrill's ribcage as Merrill finally drew breath again, gasping and choking and coughing up blood as the hole in her chest closed. She'd remembered how the unbearable pain in her own chest had dissolved and she'd broken down in loud ugly sobs of relief because she'd just lost her mother and she couldn't lose Merrill too, hadn't the Maker made it clear enough he hated her?

She felt herself swimming out of agonized delirium after her duel with the Arishok and a sword in her gut, Anders's face and Merrill's coming into focus above her; he'd managed not only to repair the damage but to keep the resulting infection from killing her, which few could have done. He'd stayed with her through the whole gory disgusting process.

She'd always believed in freedom for the mages, with her whole heart. She still did. She wanted a world where Bethany and Merrill were as safe as anyone else, where they weren't assumed to be kindling just waiting to go up in flame. Where they weren't feared and shunned, where there weren't people who'd tell them unknowing to their faces that everyone like them should be killed.

She wanted a world where people like Evelina, like Thrask's daughter—like Anders—wouldn't have reason to turn to demons to protect them.

She didn't want it to happen this way. 

(If anything good ever comes of this at all.)

She's weak. Merrill's stronger. Merrill killed Marethari—or the thing that had been her. Sasha should have killed a bloodthirsty abomination, but she couldn't kill one who was also the dear friend whom she'd once admired as one of the best people she'd ever met.

Next to her, Merrill is shivering in the wind. Bits of snow drift down amid the ash; the late autumn flurries resume, having started shortly before the unthinkable explosion. Sasha pulls Merrill close and touches lips to her cheek. She tastes dusty tears.

Further off to the side, Anders is staring into nothing, a terrible emptiness in his eyes. Varric glares coldly at him. Aveline and Fenris are turned as far away from him as possible. Bethany sits on the ground, arms curled around her knees and head down. Isabela's building a fire, but her face is tight.

"Soon, we're going to wake up, and this will all be a bad dream," Merrill murmurs. "We'll be in your bed with Fuzzy putting his cold nose in my face. And—and the Keeper will be over for tea and cookies later. With the rest of the clan, but I don't think the aravels would fit."

"And Mother will be there. With Carver putting a frog in Bethany's dressing chest." Sasha's throat closes, and she can't speak any more. Merrill is warm and small and wiry in her arms; Merrill is sobbing quietly into her shoulder, and Sasha holds her fiercely as if she's the only thing left in the world.


End file.
